human909 wrote:I thought the more sensible answer was to claim the lane earlier. If the bike lane is ending then unfortunately it is usually up to you to merge appropriately.

Consider it from the motorist's point of view. I was driving along in my own lane when a cyclist merged into my lane next to me without even looking. He then had the nerve to bang like a lunatic on my window and insist it was my fault. I did nothing wrong, I was travelling at a constant speed in the centre of my lane.

(I'm not defending the motorist for a close shave. A good road user would have seen an up coming conflict and ensured that it did not occur, this applies equally to cyclists and motorists. The description given earlier suggests the rider did not check for oncoming traffic nor take action to ensure no conflict.)

What is he supped to do, disappear? The driver was jerk, plain and simple.

human909 wrote:I thought the more sensible answer was to claim the lane earlier. If the bike lane is ending then unfortunately it is usually up to you to merge appropriately.

Consider it from the motorist's point of view. I was driving along in my own lane when a cyclist merged into my lane next to me without even looking. He then had the nerve to bang like a lunatic on my window and insist it was my fault. I did nothing wrong, I was travelling at a constant speed in the centre of my lane.

(I'm not defending the motorist for a close shave. A good road user would have seen an up coming conflict and ensured that it did not occur, this applies equally to cyclists and motorists. The description given earlier suggests the rider did not check for oncoming traffic nor take action to ensure no conflict.)

InTheWoods wrote:Jimboss, time to get a camera? That way you don't need to bang on the window, you just report them and it feels much better ... and is probably a lot more effective in improving their behaviour in future.

The 808 type are good enough and about $36.

+1

I don't go anywhere, either by car or bike without my cameras. The Jumbo's are used on the bikes and the GoPro in the car. These Jumbos and the 808's are cheap to buy, give very good results and will allow the police to see exactly what took place.

Graeme

I'm with you guys - generally speaking I'm a pretty relaxed person, but on the roads the adrenaline plus heat of the moment gets the better of me. I'm not saying that to justify myself - I'm moreso saying it because it's something about my character that I don't like.

I checked out cameras a month or two ago and couldn't find something discrete enough. I don't even like having a big light on my bars (having said that, I still have a big light on my handlebars!).

I just googled Jumbo 808 and they look like you could mount on a helmet very neatly and discretely. Gonna buy one and try it out. For that kind of money I'd be silly not to.

Thanks guys. I'd much prefer to be able to ride off knowing that I'm actually able to do something about it. Something that's always troubled me about the 'getting mad' thing is that it I don't think it achieves very much much.

One thing - there seem to be a few variations (or at least different prices charged) of the Jumbo 808. Can anyone point me to a known good version?

human909 wrote:I thought the more sensible answer was to claim the lane earlier. If the bike lane is ending then unfortunately it is usually up to you to merge appropriately.

Consider it from the motorist's point of view. I was driving along in my own lane when a cyclist merged into my lane next to me without even looking. He then had the nerve to bang like a lunatic on my window and insist it was my fault. I did nothing wrong, I was travelling at a constant speed in the centre of my lane.

(I'm not defending the motorist for a close shave. A good road user would have seen an up coming conflict and ensured that it did not occur, this applies equally to cyclists and motorists. The description given earlier suggests the rider did not check for oncoming traffic nor take action to ensure no conflict.)

While I didn't go into great detail in my previous post, for your sake, I'll explain further.

I was riding along in the bike lane, enjoying myself merrily. I'd just enjoyed a great climb on a car-less route, and was delving into the nether regions of a main road with a bicycle lane.

I came across a perilous point, where the bike lane disappearred into the abyss with smoke breathing dragons zipping about. "Never fear", your brave author exclaimed, checked over his shoulder to ensure no dragons were near, and bravely entered the nether realm of dragons and bandicoots. As your author is particularly brave, he had no qualms asserting his dominance on his new found territory by claiming the lane.

After a what seemed like an eternity, a dragon slid through your authors lane, it's tail almost collecting the edge of his handlebar.

Seriously though...

- It wasn't a "There's plenty of room I'll squeeze on past", more of a "I'm going to go around you and then come back in real tight"- The lane was claimed- I checked over my shoulder more than once- There is a watch for bicycles sign- I'm a seasoned, confident and assertive commuter and cyclist

The first point suggests that the second, third, fourth and fifth points really have no impact on whether I could have avoided the situation. The driver's actions and demeanor afterwards suggested to me that they were well aware of me being there, but were too proud to simply say sorry.

Last edited by boss on Tue Dec 04, 2012 11:08 am, edited 1 time in total.

Shred931 wrote:What is he supped to do, disappear? The driver was jerk, plain and simple.

What I do when bike lanes disappear is to head check well before hand, wait until there is space, signal and move into the middle of the lane to claim it through the intersection. This is a safe and legal way of merging and I have had no problems, no close shaves and no left hooks when doing this.

jimboss wrote:Had a close shave this morning (no video), coming into a set of lights where a bike lane disappears, car was maybe a centimeter off my bars.

Scared the crap outta me, and sure enough the lights were red and the driver was stopped in banked up traffic.

Banged on the cars window and gave them a mouthful, they were yelling back but wouldn't wind down their window when I invited them to...

You need a camera, but banging on the window is not worth the aggravation and troubles. Just get everything clearly on camera and then forward it off to the Police. Sorry to hear about the close shave. As others have suggested, claim the lane earlier, but of course everyone always knows better in hindsight.

I checked out cameras a month or two ago and couldn't find something discrete enough.

Why would you want a discrete one? I'd much prefer to make it clear I have a cam running. People moderate their behaviour when they know (or think) they're on camera. Better to prevent the bad behaviour than record it for proof. I've even considered adding a sign to the rear of my trike saying something like "Smile for the Camera" even though I don't currently have one mounted. I've not bothered, as sharing the road seems to be the only thing Ballarat drivers do well.

jimboss wrote:The first point suggests that the second, third, fourth and fifth points really have no impact on whether I could have avoided the situation. The driver's actions and demeanor afterwards suggested to me that they were well aware of me being there, but were too proud to simply say sorry.

Unfortunately for some drivers, it doesn't matter how you ride, they are still going to close shave Claim the lane, don't claim the lane, its still going to happen with them.

Re jumbos, #11 is the original decent 720p one. The so called #18 or "improved #11" is a more configurable #11. The #16 is often considered to be the best however its battery life is a lot lower than the jumbo 11 or 18 which ruled it out for me. Any of them take more than good enough footage.

Edit: make sure you buy it from one the the good sellers. There are fake ones on ebay too, believe it or not.

Thanks. And sorry for playing devils advocate, it is certainly something I often do.

That's cool, I figured as much.

DentedHead wrote:

I checked out cameras a month or two ago and couldn't find something discrete enough.

Why would you want a discrete one? I'd much prefer to make it clear I have a cam running. People moderate their behaviour when they know (or think) they're on camera. Better to prevent the bad behaviour than record it for proof. I've even considered adding a sign to the rear of my trike saying something like "Smile for the Camera" even though I don't currently have one mounted. I've not bothered, as sharing the road seems to be the only thing Ballarat drivers do well.

The reason why I'd like a discrete camera is purely for aesthetic reasons.

I qualify that with the following point - I've ridden to work for almost ten years now (since I started working), the last five I have driven to work maybe twenty or thirty times - and the number of seriously scary incidents I could count on my two hands.

So having a camera isn't so much to prevent an incident from happening, more so for my own piece of mind. Plus, for the more minor incidents (where a law is still broken) I can feel comforted in the fact I can actually do something about it.

InTheWoods wrote:

jimboss wrote:The first point suggests that the second, third, fourth and fifth points really have no impact on whether I could have avoided the situation. The driver's actions and demeanor afterwards suggested to me that they were well aware of me being there, but were too proud to simply say sorry.

Unfortunately for some drivers, it doesn't matter how you ride, they are still going to close shave Claim the lane, don't claim the lane, its still going to happen with them.

Re jumbos, #11 is the original decent 720p one. The so called #18 or "improved #11" is a more configurable #11. The #16 is often considered to be the best however its battery life is a lot lower than the jumbo 11 or 18 which ruled it out for me. Any of them take more than good enough footage.

Edit: make sure you buy it from one the the good sellers. There are fake ones on <a href="http://www.ebay.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="Link added by VigLink" class="vglnk"><span>ebay</span></a> too, believe it or not.

Cheers for the explanation - some googling did tell me that the #11 is the pick, although the article was from a year ago so it didn't cover the #16 or #18.

jimboss wrote:If you were buying today, would you go for the #18 then?

And any suggested sellers?

Yeh #18 / #11 "improved" is my personal pick, that's what I got a few weeks ago. The main negative for the #18 over the #11 is the video encoding is totally standard, so if you try to "cut" the movie with editing software it often doesn't work. I end up re-encoding the whole video, and then editing using that. Quality on youtube is pretty crappy anyway so it doesn't make a diff there.

Postieboy wrote:Another idiot on the way into work thismorning. I normally start moving over earlier but this driver was keen to get past - no worries untill he decided to squeeze me jam the brakes on and turn

jimboss wrote:If you were buying today, would you go for the #18 then?

And any suggested sellers?

Yeh #18 / #11 "improved" is my personal pick, that's what I got a few weeks ago. The main negative for the #18 over the #11 is the video encoding is totally standard, so if you try to "cut" the movie with editing software it often doesn't work. I end up re-encoding the whole video, and then editing using that. Quality on youtube is pretty crappy anyway so it doesn't make a diff there.

eletoponline or something like that is one of the good sellers.

Got myself a jumbo #18. In a different shell to the other 3 talked about on techmoan - it looks less like a car remote, more like a black bit of plastic. But it's sold by one of eletoponline's subsidaries mentioned in techmoan's reviews.

hannos wrote:For what it's worth, there's 2 lanes there and your little shoulder had ended.That's where I would have been smack bang in the middle of the lane, maybe even a tad to the right of middle.

Gotta say I wouldn't automatically claim the lane there hannos. It's a dog straight road with plenty of visibility and acres of room with the extra lane to get past cyclists. It's not the sort of place my MM antennas would be automatically picking up likely trouble signals.

hannos wrote:For what it's worth, there's 2 lanes there and your little shoulder had ended.That's where I would have been smack bang in the middle of the lane, maybe even a tad to the right of middle.

Gotta say I wouldn't automatically claim the lane there hannos. It's a dog straight road with plenty of visibility and acres of room with the extra lane to get past cyclists. It's not the sort of place my MM antennas would be automatically picking up likely trouble signals.

I do however normally move to the centre of the lane after that shoulder, but when I did my head check this guy was coming up so I figured safer to hold my line and be predictable than to move in front of him.

hannos wrote:For what it's worth, there's 2 lanes there and your little shoulder had ended.That's where I would have been smack bang in the middle of the lane, maybe even a tad to the right of middle.

Gotta say I wouldn't automatically claim the lane there hannos. It's a dog straight road with plenty of visibility and acres of room with the extra lane to get past cyclists. It's not the sort of place my MM antennas would be automatically picking up likely trouble signals.

Where there are two lanes going in the same direction, I take an entire lane.The vid posted is just one reason why.

If the lane was that wide and only a one lane road each way, then yes, I'd ride to the left out of courtesy. But not in that scenario.

hannos wrote:Where there are two lanes going in the same direction, I take an entire lane.The vid posted is just one reason why.

Fair enough mate. On the other hand this sort of road is an easy one for a cyclist to be courteous on as Postieboy was trying to be, which makes the hook all the more irritating. Mind you as you alluded to a moron like that would probably have gone around in the second lane and pulled the hook anyway!

Melrose Drive Canberra northbound approaching Theodore Street curtin. I'm in the bike lane and there are 3 lanes of cars on my right hand side that merge into 2 right there (opposite the pool).

Driver in white falcon passes me and indicates to turn left up into Theodore Street curtin. no big deal. I'm usually pretty vigilant there as its a known dodgy spot. Suddenly i get another "potential idiot approaching" vibe. woman in ice green coloured bubble type car (seriously didn't even have time to look at the plates) decides she's turning left up into theodore street too. Trouble is I'm right there next to her. She pulls up level with me and i'm about mid car and i see her left front blinker come on.

FARKENLOOOKOUUUUUT I yell - LOUDLY - and grab my brakes at the same time. She hasn't even looked or noticed me here - but I'm not exactly stick thin nor invisible.... As i brake i fall behind her and she pulls into the bike lane to turn around the corner. I yell again. She still appears oblivious - although i wonder if she was deliberately choosing to ignore me. I sit up and do the "are you effing stupid?" question with the upturned palms at her. As i go past theodore street i look up the street and give her the same arm gesture and shake me head at her. She must've seen me in her mirror.

If i hadn't have grabbed my brakes i would've been squooshed under her left back wheel.

Now I'm used to that type of situation at that particular corner and thought no more of it. But today there was a part 2....

I continued on along Yarra Glen and went under the Carruthers Street bridge. As I passed the oncoming ramp from the Carruthers street left turn onto Yarra Glen I did a left head check, signalled left and proceeded to move across the on ramp to get back into the bike lane. Suddenly i heard a loud aggressive HOOOOONK and thought Say What...? and the first car that came down the on ramp was the same Ms Crazy Driver in the same ice green buzz box. She'd obviously gone up Theodore Street and was coming down out of curtin at the next exit.

Whether that honk was a "pull your own effing head in", she obviously had no idea she damn near killed me less than 3 mins previously.....

debt nearly cleared off. nearly up for cameras..... then watch out Ms Crazy Driver in the ice green buzz box....